.MTA1Nw.NzEyNTQ

the great experiment is now making of transplanting these communities from the country east of the Mississippi to that west of this river. so far as this experiment has gone, it has fulfilled the highest expectations of the Government. The reports of the condition & prospect of the Indians who have migrated are satisfactory and encouraging. Subsistence in abundance has been procured and the elements of future prosperity and improvement have been developed. With the consent & co-operation of the well informed & influential among the tribes yet remaining within the civilized border of the United States, there is little room to doubt, but that the ultimate issue will be happy for the Indians & consoling to all who take an interest in their present deplorable condition. But, if men of this character, among the Indians, discourage all efforts to give effect to the enterprize, and thwart the views of the Government, lamentable as the issue may be, it will be beyond the reach of the Executive. The tribes must rapidly decline and ultimately perish. But, independently of any other considerations, the proposition you make, with respect to the permanent retention of a part of the State of Georgia, is inadmissible, because it would prevent the settlement of the very question which has been pending so many years, & which has occasioned such anxiety to the Government. Nothing short of an entire removal from that State would terminate this difficulty. And the President does not feel himself authorized to agree to any arrangement which would not finally settle the troubles that have occured. With respect to your remarks concerning the letters addressed to this Department and the President, I will state here what I observed to you personally - that those letters contained nothing more than the views which you had so often submitted, and which had been as often fully considered and answered. No new proposition was made, and it would have been entirely useless to renew a correspondence promising no useful result. As